Opinion / Humor

Last week’s column about Facebook fan pages generated a few reader questions, and I wanted to field those before moving on to other subjects. I spoke to a young man who considers himself an expert in the area of social media,

Leaders of IBMA and the city of Raleigh can breathe a little easier now that another year of MerleFest is in the books. The annual four-day roots music extravaganza in Wilkesboro, NC, was the first major music festival held in the

Ever since Facebook came on the scene, making people in vast portions of the world up to 58% less productive in their lives, bluegrass musicians, bands, associations, and other related businesses have tried to use it for promotional and networking

Last week, I experimented with changing lyrics to some of our time-honored murder ballads, and most agreed with me that the results were less-than ideal, even though some lives were saved in the process. Some would even suggest that it’s never

I heard recently from a SiriusXM listener who was bothered by the fact that we seem to play a lot of violent–even brutal–songs. She made the point that there was already plenty of violence in our media and culture, and

Here it is April already and I’ve completely neglected the annual bluegrass quiz, which was originally intended to be a New Year’s feature. That’s just the way the first quarter of this year has been going. I expect to get

We could learn a thing or two from The Roosevelts. I’m not referring to the recent Ken Burns series, but rather to a self-described “southern-raised indie rock” duo out of Nashville. These Roosevelts are breaking some new ground in the

The first day of spring has past, Easter’s almost here, and that means that it’s time for our annual feature (except for the years when I forget to do it): Tax Tips For the Bluegrass Musician. For those who have just

I realize that there are musical rays of hope that break through the radio barrier periodically, but I still try to avoid most of the offerings of current pop music, and the same goes for “New Country.” Still, it’s almost

I got so caught up with reading the fine points of the Hawaii exit polls (where I detected just a hint of pineapple in the voting trends), that I let my Wednesday morning deadline slip my mind entirely. Here, then,